The Criterion Collection: Double Indemnity 4K

Director: Billy Wilder
Screenplay: Raymond Chandler, Billy Wilder,
Starring: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall, Jean Heather, Tom Powers, Byron Barr, Richard Gaines, Fortunio Bonanova,
John Philliber
Country: US
Running Time: 107 minutes
Year: 1944

Double Indemnity was not the first Film Noir, but it remains the most Noir. You know, that sounded better in my head. Anyway, it’s essential to the history of the genre and is still wickedly entertaining. I’m not sure director Billy Wilder is talked about enough; his career was so varied and he made redrawing genre conventions look easy. Double Indemnity could almost have been a musical, the dialogue zings back and forth with such rhythm, while the cinematography tells us just as much.

Cinematographer John Seitz’ distillation of methods inspired by German Expressionism had already been seen since Detour, but arguably not so precisely. Fred MacMurray is doomed, we know this from the start because he tells us, but he is trapped in shadows; turn the sound off, skip Fred’s confessional, ignore Mikloz Rozsa’s music that expertly reveals his fate. It’s still obvious there’s no happy ending for our anti-hero. Though he’s barely even that. A small man in a small world getting swallowed up and sometimes the shadows even form bars. Barbara Stanwyck similarly flits between light and dark, visualising her ability to play to either.

It’s scandalous stuff too, especially by making the audience complicit. By telling the story in flashback, we can only watch as travesty and brazen sexuality are paraded on screen. The couple don’t even have the excuse of ignorance. No, Fred MacMurray is telling us quite clearly that what he is doing is wrong and that it’s not going to end well. And what for? Money and sex, but not necessarily in that order.

The fast, often theatrical style can seem dated, but it’s a film of its time and its style should be embraced. The two leads, along with Robsinson, are marvellous and the dialogue is a wonder. Every other line whistles like a firework. “There’s a speed limit in this state”. Even if it occasionally dabbles in some old fashioned ideas: “See if you can carry that as far as the living room”.

These aren’t even career criminals. It’s an insurance salesman and a housewife giving in to their base desires. They’re not even careless. The only chunk of humanity left for MacMurray is that he at least is victim to Barbara’s unblinking ice maiden, the ultimate femme fatale. For the audience, moral conscience lives in the superb Edward G. Robinson. Literally so, as he keeps talking about the “little man in here”, banging his chest.

The lines of morality are positively leapt over, dragging the audience with it, wrapped in the tatters of the Hays Code. Ok, the Code still had life in it yet, but Wilder and Hitchcock amongst others would keep pushing. To our 2024 eyes, the story can still be shocking. The machine-tooled production may be too obvious to new viewers, but that -and I can’t stress this enough- is the point. I said it before, I’ll say it again: brazen. And Wilder delivers it so politely too.

VIDEO

This 4K restoration from Criterion is fabulous (with another James M. Cain adaptation due this month in Mildred Pierce). The print remains a little beat up, though the shimmer settles. Contrast and texture are crisp within an apparent but discrete grain. The image is occasionally bright, especially outdoors, but the contrast with shadows works better as a result and it’s very important in this, the definitive noir. For example, when Stanwyck visits MacMurray at his apartment.

The charms of this new transfer may not be immediately obvious; Eureka!’s blu-ray was excellent. But what I don’t think gets spoken about enough in UHD is the power it can unlock in the depth of field. Due to Wilder’s staging, the film often appears to have layers. Well of course it does, but the clarity is a gift.

AUDIO

The uncompressed monaural soundtrack is excellent. It’s not an action film and it is the centre channel doing all the heavy lifting, but dialogue is clear and present throughout, easily filling the space while still feeling pointedly centred.

EXTRA FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and two Blu-rays with the film and special features
• Audio commentary featuring film critic Richard Schickel
• New interview with film scholar Noah Isenberg, editor of Billy Wilder on Assignment
• New conversation between film historians Eddie Muller and Imogen Sara Smith
• Billy, How Did You Do It?, a 1992 film by Volker Schlöndorff and Gisela Grischow featuring interviews with director Billy Wilder
• Shadows of Suspense, a 2006 documentary on the making of Double Indemnity
• Radio adaptations from 1945 and 1950
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Angelica Jade Bastién
• New Cover by Greg Ruth